I know he was wrong. But I loved him. And I do not think he had to die.

He called me by my elven name because he knew that’s how I liked to be called. I called him in Adûnaic because he did not like elves. If we had lived in one of the cities we probably would never have looked at one another twice; we may even have hated one another. But we both lived in a small town, far away from all of the action and the seclusion and the persecution. And we lived side by side despite our differences and we loved one another.

My cousin in Rómenna was taken; we never saw her again. We mourned together. And we mourned when his grandfather, stubbornly clinging to the last of his life, finally passed. The losses had been hard for them; I could understand why they wanted to live forever.

I, for one, had never thought about life or death. All I knew was this land was a gift and I did not wish to give it up. All I knew was that I would die one day, and that this was the order of things. I had no concept of the Powers on their thrones in the West.

He did not like the sacrifices, no matter what some may say. He did not think they were necessary, and he was so pleased when he learned of the march on Valinor because he thought that then they would stop.

They have.

And if the march had happened a year later, we would have been married and I would be with him even now.

Sometimes I wonder if that would have been better.

But when the war began my father made us move to the City, and I promised him before I left that I would return. The day of the storm I escaped, but my eye was ever on Westernesse, knowing whom I had left behind.

Some say the Powers caused my home to perish. Some say it was One higher. I do not know who it was, but my love is no more and it is His fault.

The other exiles give me strange looks, and when they think I cannot hear whisper that I too should have been plunged beneath the waves. They mourn for their Queen, who could not escape in time, though year after year she sat at the King’s side and did nothing to help them.

As for me, I shall go to the east and forget those who ruled the world for my good. I may have once been among the Faithful, but I am faithful no more. I treat others the way they treat me, and if the Powers have seen fit to kill my love then I see no reason why I should continue to love them.